Kansas City Scouts

 Talk about a blast from the past! The Kansas City Scouts entered the league at the tail end of the expansion era in 1974. A wave of excitement swept through the Midwest because the city was finally awarded a franchise. Unfortunately their tenure in the NHL was short lived. In fact, they lasted two full seasons before disbanding and relocating to Denver to become the Colorado Rockies. Their legacy lives on though based mostly on the popularity of their jerseys, especially their dark blue sweaters pictured here.


The name of the team was originally supposed to be the Kansas City Mohawks to recognize the state of Missouri and "Jayhawkers", which is the nickname for Kansas. This was contested by the Chicago Blackhawks, who felt that the name was too close to theirs so they held a contest to change their name, which became the Scouts after an iconic statue located in the city's Penn Valley Park. The logo depicting the statue is one of the coolest logos in my opinion. It provides the team with a sense of historical background while looking sharp in the process. The colors used for the jersey (blue, red, yellow and white) can all be found in the city's and state's flag.

What I love about this jersey is that way that the logo stands out from the rest of the jersey and that the patterns used on the sleeves and bottom portion are similar to what you might see on American Indians' clothing. The use of off color stripes helps in making the jersey unique and stand out compared to contemporary jerseys. The minimalistic approach to the logo with the use of shadowing and white space to project the images of the horse and Indian is genius.

My final word: Classic vintage jersey. I really wish that the New Jersey Devils would pay tribute to this great jersey by having a throwback game. Definitely a jersey to purchase if you are a hardcore NHL fan.

Minnesota Wild 2003-2007

Now that we have an idea of what a weak jersey design is after my analysis of the brand new U.S. Olympic sweaters, I have chosen one of my favorites.The Minnesota Wild has only been in the league for 13 years, which is new compared to the majority of the other NHL teams. But what makes this jersey so great is the combination of the team logo, the numbering, the color scheme and the shoulder patch. Here it is in action.

The Wild's logo is really an optical illusion; when you first look at it, it appears to be a bear or some kind of mountainous creature but a closer look into the logo reveals a typical Minnesotan landscape of trees, mountains and the sun peeking over top. In my opinion, the Wild have one of the best logos in sports history, no less the NHL. The way that the numbers are designed is also quite unique. It features jagged edges on certain parts of the numbers, giving it that rough, wilderness type look which goes really well with the logo. The color scheme of green, red and wheat gives it that standout ability amongst other jerseys. The shoulder patch can be seen here. I like how they used the same font that they did for the numbers for the word Wild on the shoulder patch.

My final word: Probably one of the best hockey jerseys that you will ever come across. People give the Wild a hard time because they haven't been very successful and that doesn't bode well with residents of the "State of Hockey" but they sure do know how to make a good looking jersey. They have since ditched this style but CCM's version is definitely the best style out of them all. 

2014 USA Olympic Jersey

I would like to start out this blog by taking a critical look at the brand new jerseys created by Nike for the U.S. Olympic ice hockey teams.

What we have here is a design that looks more appropriate for a soccer jersey or maybe a set of Under Armour. The new look to the U.S. jerseys has gotten a lot of backlash including this humorous article from SBNation. Within hours of the release, USA Hockey's Facebook page exploded with comments about how horrendous these jerseys look; there were so many comments that they started deleting the poor reviews and only kept the positive ones. It's pretty bad when even one of the players, St. Louis Blues captain David Backes, models the jersey for the media and states that he has reservations about it.

What is there to criticize about these jerseys? Well, we can start with the hokey and ridiculous looking star pattern at the top of the jersey. It literally looks like a child got some construction paper, cut out some stars and went to town. Most jerseys also feature laces at the top in order to keep the top portion nice and tight (it's stylish too!). But on these particular jerseys, Nike decided to use a fake pattern much like the stars in which there are "laces" placed near the top in a knot. This just looks silly. The contrast in the stripes between the white and dark jerseys is strange as well. On the dark jersey, the red and white stripes are large and there is no stripe across the front. The light jersey features a red stripe all the way across the jersey to separate the top blue half from the bottom white half. The truly one good thing about this jersey is the crest; the logo used for these two reflects USA jerseys of old. The inside of the collar features the phrase "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" which would have been a nice touch on the shoulder where we could see it instead of being hidden in the collar.

My final thoughts: Shame on you Nike. You ruined what has always been a solid symbol of our Olympic pride with this second-rate tissue paper style jersey. Might I suggest scrapping this before the Games and going back to the 1980s 'Miracle on Ice' style or even the more recent ones?

Welcome!

Hello readers and fellow bloggers! I created this blog for a project in a college class so I'm hoping that I can provide you with informative posts in an easy accessible way. I have a strong passion for hockey and have covered several teams in the past on other blogs. My mission statement is to critique hockey jerseys from the National Hockey League and Olympic tournaments, past and present. I feel that the logo for a sports team and its colors are a large part of their identity. The way that they incorporate each aspect into a sports jersey can give it iconic status or will be the butt of every joke. I will try to show past and present jersey designs back to back so you as the reader can see the differences and can understand why something works in one case and doesn't in another. I'm sure you all will have differing opinions on what I have to say; I understand, everyone has their own unique perspective on topics like this. I hope you enjoy the blog!